volatilitytradingstrategies.com Reviews 3

definitely a scammer. He claims to trade, but he only did simulated accounts. He gets offended when you ask him for proof of actual trades. He claims his "fill" prices are the end-of-day prices (settlement prices).

He talks about not trading until the end of the day because he doesn't want to front-run his customers :) on VIX options :) utter garbage.

I subscribed in September of 2022 and began losing money immediately. That was not my concern, losing money is part of investing. What was a concern is that I was down about 40% while Brent claimed to be down 19% even though I followed all of the recommended trades. This type of performance discrepancy is not possible from things like differences in trade timing, so I asked Brent to show the buy and sell prices for his trades to see where our discrepancies were and he refused. I believe that his numbers are made up, and even his made up numbers are not good after 2017, so good luck if you believe his claims that he made 60% RoR in 2012 when no one was subscribed to him.

Volatility Tactical Strategies (run by Brent Osachoff) is the real deal. Brent is a fundamentally conservative investor at heart and has devised a simple 5-bucket investing approach that is intended as a potential "whole-portfolio" type of approach (as opposed to a great profitable service but without sufficient diversification to rely on for your whole portfolio). And the service has produced gains way above the S&P consistently.

Depending on a wide variety of volatility metrics, many of which are just well-known and some proprietary ones that Brent has devised, VTS determines how risky the market is for each of these five buckets. Then based on where the metrics for each bucket fall based on backtesting, VTS will rotate you in and out of ETFs like the SPY and QQQ and SVXY or more conservative positions such as utilities and treasuries or cash. While you will actually earn much of your money from 3 of 5 buckets when SPY is doing well, the overall strategy has very low correlation with the S&P - just .35 or so - given how the buckets rotate in and out (I have done nothing to confirm this correlation coefficient but everything about Brent and VTS is on the up-and-up and it all makes logical sense based on the strategy as I have observed it so I trust he has correctly calculated this properly).

When I first joined, I had a sinking feeling when VTS put me into utilities and treasuries and cash. I thought there's no way VTS can achieve returns this way. But that's actually precisely how VTS will make you tremendous returns. By getting out of the market when it's at its most dangerous based on volatility as historically backtested, you will largely avoid most meltdowns. You can't ever predict 9/11-style market crashes so volatility is absolutely no help there. But in most other big market crashes, VTS is likely to get you out. It got investors out in the 2020 pandemic and in the 2018 Volpocalypse, for example.

VTS offers two basic levels - the basic one and the leveraged portfolio. The latter puts investors in SSO instead of SPY, QLD instead of QQQ, etc. I would personally recommend the latter if you can risk it. You will have more exposure in a 9/11 style event but the downside protection VTS is able to offer is huge, so drawdowns during ordinary times will be quite small compared to the upside benefit of double earnings.

Brent does a ton of educational videos and blogs and does office hours basically weekly so you can ask questions or he can comment on various aspects of the strategy. Highly informative, if unnecessary since all you need to do is just take the trades he recommends. And he is great about responding to customers. He does answer email.

I can't recommend this service highly enough. Brent is sober-thinking, experienced, mathematically based, careful and is an excellent educator as well. One of his buckets plus an optional add-on can rely on options. But if you don't know options, he will make things simple for you to do what you need to do. And incidentally, the options strategy is really a fantastic addition to the portfolio since it is designed to make money overall while also being counter-cyclical, basically guaranteed to make money in bad times - a nice relief. If the options strategy does poorly, it's only because the other 4 buckets are making a lot of money.

And FYI, I truly don't know Brent except through subscribing. I just left a horrible review for another investment service and a so-so one for a service that can be ok if they just don't misrepresent what they can do for investors. So this review is on the up-and-up as much as VTS/Brent is.